Princess Eliane Vaur will return to acting in a six-part historical drama, she announced on Thursday at Lausanne’s Palais de Rumine, a 19th-century museum building. The announcement came exactly 10 years after she left public duties in the small Alpine principality of Valdorne, across the Swiss border, and reignited a feud with her father.
The 41-year-old had not appeared on screen since the family’s televised dispute in 2016. Then a 31-year-old princess, she said she would not surrender her acting career for a formal role at court; her father, Prince Odran Vaur, said the family had expected her to serve. Thursday’s return turned that old disagreement into a live argument again.
A return on her own terms
Eliane made the announcement beside a 33-centimetre (13-inch) touch-sensitive OLED screen made by fictional Swiss technology firm Pearl Orchard. It displayed a selection of her own archived footage, including a short clip from the 2016 broadcast. She tapped the dark panel to bring up the image, then turned away from it and faced the audience.
“I left because I was told I could be one thing or the other,” she said. “This time, I am choosing both: my work, and my name.” She will play a cartographer in the drama, which is due to begin filming in Valais in February. The production’s makers have not yet announced a release date.
This time, I am choosing both: my work, and my name.
Princess Eliane Vaur
About 240 people watched from the museum’s stone-lined hall, with more gathered outside in light rain. Micheal Hegmann, a Swiss film programmer who attended, said the room erupted when Eliane announced the role. “People had come expecting a memorial to a difficult day. She gave them a beginning instead,” he said.
Her father answers from Valdorne
Within an hour, Prince Odran’s household said the family would not attend any events linked to Eliane’s comeback. The statement said her decision to leave court duties had been “understood as permanent” and that today’s announcement “does not alter her obligations to Valdorne”. Eliane has no official duties there and lives in Lausanne.
Eliane rejected the idea that her return required the family’s approval. “I have spent 10 years waiting for a permission that was never mine to ask for,” she told reporters. Her representatives said she would keep the Vaur name professionally but would not use her courtesy title in the drama’s credits.
The disagreement has followed her through a decade in which she moved from palace receptions to film sets and then out of public view. The family’s original broadcast, watched across Valdorne, became a defining moment for its royal household; Eliane’s refusal to withdraw her acting plans was replayed repeatedly in Swiss entertainment coverage.
Natalia Rosado, a cultural historian who studies royal public life, said the anniversary made the announcement unusually potent: “She has reclaimed the date without pretending the split did not happen.” Outside the museum, visitors traded congratulations and took photographs of the illuminated display. Eliane left through a side entrance smiling, as rain blurred the lights on Lausanne’s wet pavements.
